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Wednesday, 22 July 2015

London Film & Comic Con 2015 - A Detailed Review

Guests met and discussed in this review
(with the franchise I most associate them with personally) :-
• Hayley Atwell (Agent Peggy Carter in “Agent Carter” and other Marvel
projects)

• Rose Leslie (Ygritte in “Game Of
Thrones”)

• Carice Van Houten (Melisandre in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont in “Game Of
Thrones”)

• David Bradley (Walder Frey in “Game
Of Thrones” and Argus Filch in the “Harry Potter” film series)

• Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore in
the “Harry Potter” film series)

• Rey Mysterio (Wrestler)

• James Remar (Harry Morgan in
“Dexter”)

• Catherine Tate (Donna Noble in
“Doctor Who”)

• Jonathan Pryce (The High Sparrow in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Julian Glover (Grand Maester Pycelle
in “Game Of Thrones”)

• Alexander Siddig (Doran Martell in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in the
“Nightmare On Elm Street” film series)

• Jason David Frank (Tommy Oliver in
the “Power Rangers” franchise)

• Kristian Nairn (Hodor in “Game Of
Thrones”)

• Keisha Castle-Hughes (Obara Sand in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Jessica Henwick (Nymeria Sand in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Gemma Whelan (Yara (Asha!) Greyjoy in
“Game Of Thrones”)

• Sean Gunn (Lucas in “Angel”, Mars in
“Angel”, and Kraglin in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”)

• Gregg Henry (Sheriff Bourne in
“Firefly” and Peter Quill’s grandfather in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”)• Peter Shinkoda (Nobu in “Daredevil”)Before we get started, a quick note...

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course.

This past weekend I attended yet
another London Film & Comic Con (I will get around to retroactively writing
my reviews of LFCC 2012, LFCC 2013 & LFCCW 2013 at some point!), held by
Showmasters. The final few weeks before LFCC is always a very interesting time
to be a fan of conventions because it’s arguably the largest in Europe at this
point. A great portion of my early July period was dedicated to writing
schedules, organising transport, brainstorming talking points for the guests,
and checking the forums every half an hour to see if anyone else had cancelled.
Those cancellations can be a right bitch! However, they are to be expected.
Especially when you have over 130 guests on the line-up. This year’s
cancellations were a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, Charles Dance, Kurt
Angle, Emily Kinney, and Natalie Tena all cancelled on me. Charles, Kurt, and
Emily were all in my ‘top 5’ guests that I was most looking forward to meeting,
so I was particularly crushed when Charles cancelled a week before the event.
In hindsight, a few cancellations did me good. Firstly, I’m moving house in 2
weeks. Refund money is very much needed right now. Secondly, my schedule would
have been even more torturous without
these cancellations and I’d have probably missed quite a few people, which
would have been a shame.

LFCC took place at the Olympia in
London this year, which is the same venue as LFCC Winter in 2013. However,
unlike LFCCW 2013, this year’s LFCC wasn’t taking place over one floor...it was
four floors. Oh, dear God! So many stairs! I’m not sure if the original plan was
to go out instead of up, but the other halls were in use, all I know is that my
feet are owwey with 13 blisters. In fact, just before starting this review, I
burst the largest of them with a blade I bought at LFCC last year...con weapons
are beautiful and practical, people! Blisters
aside, my time at LFCC this year was brilliant, and I could definitely see a
great deal of improvement from Showmasters since last year’s Saturday debacle.
Of course, it’s not perfect and there are some glaring issues that still need
fixing, but Showmasters do seem to be trying hard to improve the event as much
as possible, which is definitely a step in the right direction. Out of the
Olympia and Earls Court II (where last year’s LFCC was held), I think I
slightly prefer the Olympia. I just wish it would go out instead of up.

Here are the basic floor layouts for
LFCC this year (from ground to 3rd)...

For many people this year the hook of
the event was the appearances of Michael J. Fox, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Paxton,
Christopher Lloyd, Robert Englund, and Michael Gambon, most of whom were given
the new and shiny label of ‘diamond guests’. Basically, you get goodies, talks,
photos, and guaranteed autographs
(more on that later). However, outside of a photo with Michael Gambon and
Robert Englund, my interaction with the ‘A-List’ guests was fairly
limited...something that my wallet is still thanking me for. As much as I’d
love a picture with Michael J. Fox, I can’t afford £95 without selling organs
that I’ve become rather attached to. This mostly worked in my favour for the
weekend as it allowed me to head straight to virtual queuing tickets for the
guests that I wanted to meet, while many people were heading in another
direction for the headliners. For those of you unaware, ‘virtual queuing’
tickets are exactly like they sound. Instead of queuing up directly for an
autograph with one of the more popular guests, you grab a virtual queuing
ticket with a number on it. That number is your position in the queue. For
example, if you receive a virtual queuing number of 51, you can join the queue
once the board says that they’re 1-60 (or any time after your number has been
called). It allows you to virtually place yourself in the queue, while also
allowing you to go away and do other things until your number is called and
you’re in a position time-wise to meet the guest and collect the autograph.
Virtual queuing is a great aspect of conventions because it does allow you the
freedom to go away and do other things. However, it does mean that when doors
first open there’s a mad dash to get a low virtual queuing number. People were
running, people were pushing, and people were stressed. Doors opened on Friday
the 17th of July at 1:00pm, and myself, John, and Hannah were in the
queue by 10:55am. Two hours of sun, heat, and a little more sun...yay. Just
what my Irish skin tones needs – burning. Still, beats rain. Arriving a couple
of hours before the event started allowed us to be roughly 150th in
the queue. Unlike previous LFCC’s, there was no ‘early bird’ ticket this time
around. There was simply a queue for gold ticket holders and a queue for
regular ticket holders (plus one for people entering the Young Adult Literacy
Convention). This seemed to work a little better for me personally because it
was a lot easier to figure out which queue you needed to be in...follow the
hordes of nerds. Unlike waiting to get in on Saturday and Sunday, time seemed
to stop entirely on Friday. I swear, I checked the time at 11am, sat down,
chilled out, talked, read, knit a sweater, went for a jog, had a nap, designed
a tea cosy, and watched two episodes of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” in my head, only
to check my phone again and discover that it was 11:05am. What. The. Fuck. What
kind of backwards, alternative reality have I stumbled in to where time moves
at one-eighth of the rate?

Seventeen years later, it was 1pm and
the doors opened promptly. I was surprised at how quickly the entrance queues
moved, actually. We were in the venue within a matter of minutes and the doors opened on time! Much
better organised than I remember last year’s entrance queues being. Barring my
ass after 2 hours on a concrete floor, entrance into the event was a painless
process. My itinerary for Friday was (not so) simple...photos with Kristian
Nairn, Jason David Frank, and James Remar. Autographs with those three, plus Peter
Shinkoda, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Sean Gunn, Gregg Henry, and Julian Glover. With
Friday ending at 8pm, that left me 7 hours to get this accomplished. However,
we still needed to get to the ‘hotel’ (more on that later), unwind, shower, and
get up at 5am the next morning, so my aim was to be finished by 6pm (with my
final photo shoot being at 5:30pm). Out of the 8 guests listed above, I only
envisaged Jason David Frank having a virtual queuing system implemented, and
perhaps Julian Glover as he was only there on Friday. This turned out to be the
case for Jason, and none of the other 7 people I was getting autographs from
were using virtual queuing at the times I met them. Within seconds of entering
the building, it was time to find Jason David Frank’s autograph queue to get a
low V.Q. ticket number. Here is where preparation comes in handy. A week before
LFCC, Showmasters released a list of which floor everyone would be signing on.
I knew Jason was onthe first floor so I
headed there straight away. Consequentially, I had V.Q. number 24. No problems
there! Even with gold ticket holders (roughly 500 people) not needing virtual
queuing tickets, I was sure to be seen with such a low number! One major stress
out of the way!

My first photo shoot of the day was
with James Remar at 2:15pm in photo area C. For some random reason, photo areas
B, C, and D were on the ground floor, while A and E were on the first floor,
with F on the 3rd floor. Why, oh why, don’t photo areas have a floor
dedicated to them? It would make clashes much easier as they’d be in close proximity
to each other, and you’d eliminate the problem of people looking at the
merchandise stalls getting caught up in the crowds at the photo areas.
Showmasters, if you’re reading this, please consider putting photo areas
together on the same floor/region in the future! I can’t see a reason why it
couldn’t happen, yet there are reasons why it should happen. A dedicated photo
shoot floor would be fabulous. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to get to
photo shoots about 10 minutes before they start. You don’t need to get there
earlier than that because the photo shoots are called in batches. You’ll just
be getting in the way. This year’s LFCC was a little more complicated because
it fell in the no man’s land between old style posted tickets and e-tickets. Therefore,
photo sessions were called in the following order :-

·Diamond
pass holders (for that specific diamond guest only)

·Gold
pass holders·Old
style posted tickets·Batchless
e-tickets (before the batching system took effect)·Batch
1·Batch
2·Etc.·Old
style posted tickets that were bought at LFCC itself (you could tell the
difference between the posted ones and the ones bought at the event due to the
ones being bought at the event having a highlighter mark across the ticket
number)

Well, damn, that’s confusing. Plus,
some guests were announced after it all transitioned to e-tickets, so any old
style tickets must have been bought at the event, but not all tickets had the
highlighter mark on them. This led to people who’d only just bought their photo
ticket going in before people who’d bought their ticket weeks/months in
advance. This is exactly what happened with my Alexander Siddig photo shoot on
Saturday. I tried to politely explain this to Justin on photo area D (before
he’d started calling anyone for the shoot), and he snapped at me. Okay then.
Won’t try to help in future. It made no difference to me as I had an hour free
after the photo shoot, I was just trying to let him know because I knew other
people would kick off. Of course, when he started calling old style tickets
before e-tickets (which had been bought before the old style tickets), people
kicked off. It’s not Justin’s fault, he was just calling the tickets in the
order he was told to in his de-briefing, but someone should have made everyone
aware which guests had been announced after everything had transitioned to
e-tickets. This is all kind of moot now moving forwards as it’ll all be
e-tickets from the start, so anyone with an old style ticket must have bought
it at the event.

Jumping back to Friday, I had an hour
free before my photo shoot with James Remar. How many autographs can I get
through before I need to flit away at 2pm? First up, the wonderful Julian
Glover.

Julian Glover
– Julian is a unique actor in that he’s basically been in every major franchise
ever except Star Trek. Harry Potter? Yep. Game Of Thrones? Yep. Indiana Jones?
Yep. Star Wars? Yep. James Bond? Yep. That’s one hell of a résumé! I’d actually
met Julian at LFCC 2013. I had a studio photo with him and also an autograph on
a Star Wars 8” x 10”. Alas, I wanted a Grand Maester Pycelle 8” x 10” signed
too, so I decided rather spontaneously the day before LFCC that I was going to
go for it after Charles Dance and Kurt Angle’s last-minute cancellations. For a
man that has been in so many franchises and been around the industry for 50
years, Julian is still so humble and talkative. As he was only there on Friday,
I was expecting his autograph queue to be rammed (it was) and for the autograph
process to be like a conveyer belt – “hi”, “hi”, 10 seconds while the autograph
is being written, “bye”, “bye”, which is the normal process with really busy
guests. It’s only fair as they have so many people that are desperate to meet
them. However, even though his autograph queue was busy, Julian took a few
minutes to talk to me about “Game Of Thrones” and the process of playing Grand
Maester Pycelle for 5 seasons. We talked about Pycelle’s motives on the show,
we talked about the deleted scene between Pycelle and Tywin Lannister from
season 3, where Tywin sees right through Pycelle’s act of pretending to be
feeble, and Julian ended the conversation with a memorable sound bite – “that
old bastard just keeps on going, doesn’t he?”. Hilarious. Julian couldn’t have
been nicer. It was clear to me that he was there because he wanted to interact
with his fans, not because he wanted to line his pockets. Granted, that’s a
great incentive too, but it’s so easy to tell which guests are there for money
primarily and which guests are there to meet their fans primarily. Guest type: Responder.

For those of you asking “what the frick
is a ‘responder’?”, I’ll explain. Previously, I devised a three-category process to
label convention guests. These are :-

·The
Responder: This type of guest is often polite and friendly. If you ask them a question,
they’ll happily answer. If you comment on something, they’ll respond or smile
gratefully. However, they won’t carry the conversation forward, you have to.
These are the most common type of guest, and this is what you expect when
meeting someone at a convention. This is a great category to
be a part of.

·The
Groucho/Big Guest: There are two aspects to this category. Firstly, you have
the groucho. The groucho is there for monetary purposes or is generally just
having a bad day, or is a bit of an ass. If you meet enough people, one of them
is bound to be an ass! The grouchos aren’t interested in conversations above a
few words. They’ll say ‘hi’ (sometimes they don’t bother with that), sign, say
‘bye’ (sometimes), and you’re on your merry way. Of course, in certain
situations this is relevant and expected, which brings me to the second part of
this category, the big guest. Some guests are going to be insanely popular.
Such as Stan Lee at LFCC ‘14, who had an entire building to himself basically.
When you get a huge queue like that, the guest can’t take a lot of time with
everyone. If they did, many people would go home disappointed at not getting to
meet them at all. Therefore, the convention company and the guest want to get
through as many people as possible. You cannot have a huge guest and expect to
get above a minute with them, which is perfectly fair.

·The
Conversationalist: This is easily my favourite type of guest.
They’ll answer your questions with a smile, ask you questions in return, and
are happy to chat for an extended period of time (extended = above 2-3
minutes), regardless of where the conversation leads or how long you’ve been
talking. Obviously, there has to be some cut-off point if
there is a queue behind you, but you leave the experience feeling euphoric and
like you gained a lot more than just the autograph you queued for.

Good ol’
Julian Glover set a standard for the rest of the guests to try to meet. I
always find that the first conversation is the hardest. You haven’t settled
into your rhythm yet, you’re still a little disoriented and overwhelmed, and
you’re trying to encourage your brain to function above a monkey playing
cymbals while mumbling vowel sounds. After Julian Glover, I took a few moments
to try to steady myself. Most of the other people I wanted to meet weren’t in
the same zone of the first floor, and the ones that were weren’t at their
autograph desks yet. I took this time to find John and Hannah once again,
re-read my inordinate amount of paperwork for LFCC to soothe me (leave me
alone!), and find my bearings. I recommend that everyone does this for 5
minutes after they’ve grabbed their virtual queuing tickets. Where do you need
to be next? Where do you need to be this weekend? Do you know where the photo
areas are? Do you know where the sales desk is? Is your underwear still clean
after spotting James Remar from a distance...okay, that last one might be just
me. Remember, in the sea of people, chaos, and adrenaline, you need to relax.
Stay calm. Have a plan in mind. It’ll aid your mental health greatly over the
day/weekend.

With James Remar arriving at his
autograph table (alongside the legendary Sean Clark, agent to many stars and
most of “The Walking Dead” cast), I decided to meet James next.

James Remar - I tend to find that when I
attend a convention where I’m meeting many guests, one person suddenly jumps
out at me as someone I’m way more excited to meet than I thought I’d be. For
this convention, it was James Remar. I’m a huge “Dexter” fan, which is why I
wanted to meet James in the first place, but as the convention loomed closer
and closer, I found myself becoming as excited for James Remar as I was for the
guests that I was desperate to meet.
James seemed in high spirits and was infectiously greeting everyone with a
smile and a handshake. After selecting a “Dexter” 8” x 10” to be signed, James
quickly began talking about his experiences on the show. From his favourite
season to his favourite scenes, from working with Michael C. Hall to the unique
premise of the show. James stated that the first and fourth seasons (“the one
with Lithgow!”) were his favourite to watch and be a part of because the
stories were so rich and unexpected. Even though he didn’t outright say it I
got the impression that like many fans James preferred the first four seasons
to the final four seasons. However, while he didn’t like the final season that
much, he did like the final scene between Dexter and Harry in the penultimate
episode of the show. He felt like it was a fitting time for Harry to drift away
from Dexter’s psyche. I mentioned that “Dexter” is kind of messed up when you
think about the fact that the leading character and ‘hero’ is a serial killer.
We talked about how without Harry’s code, the show would be sending a much darker
message into the world...not that it’s sending hugs and rainbows with the code.
James summised the premise by saying “That’s the 21st century
audience. They want complex, grey-area characters that make mistakes and break
the rules”. So true. Like Julian Glover before him, James was one of the more
popular guests of the convention, yet he took his time to have an actual
conversation with me, look me in the eye, shake my hand, and thank me for
coming. Eye contact and handshakes can be the difference between a good
encounter and a great one, so James really went above my expectations here. Surprisingly,
he was also offering pictures with him at the autograph table too. Bonus! Guest
type: Responder.

Two excellent encounters to start
the weekend. With James and Julian finished, and with a virtual queuing ticket
in hand for Jason David Frank, I decided to head over to the other side of the
first floor to find Kristian Nairn. With people still piling into the building,
I decided to get Kristian next as I deemed him to be the most popular guest
remaining that I wanted to meet that I didn’t have a V.Q. ticket for. This
turned out to be a smart move.

Kristian Nairn – The first floor and the ground
floor were very, very hot all weekend. You could feel that the air conditioning
was working on all 4 floors, but only the 3rd floor felt less than
stuffy and hot. The 3rd floor became the unofficial chill-out
section of the convention because it was so much cooler than everywhere else.
Sadly, on Friday, Kristian was on the first floor (he was on the 3rd
floor on Saturday and Sunday), and you could see that the heat was getting to
him already. He was sweating and looked very uncomfortable. However, he was
still pretty talkative and seemed quite happy. I asked him if he was officially
appearing in “Game Of Thrones” season six, and he said that he hadn’t formally
been announced yet, but Isaac (Bran Stark) has been, “so I’ll let you draw your
own conclusions on that *wink wink*”. We briefly talked about his DJ’ing career
and his upcoming gigging schedule before talking about how we both believe that
Hodor isn’t as simple as he seems. There’s definitely more going on there than
meets the eye. While the conversation wasn’t as long or as detailed as James
and Julian, it was still a pleasant encounter. Guest type: Hodor (Responder).

By this point in the afternoon,
it was quickly approaching 2pm, so I decided to head downstairs to photo area
C, ready for my photo with James Remar. Showmasters very quickly realised that
the temporary staircase leading from the ground floor to the first floor was
becoming overcrowded and dangerous, so they made the staircase an ‘up only’
staircase, with the four stairwells at the corners of the venue becoming up and
down stairwells. This was a wise move and one that served them well throughout
the remainder of the weekend. While Friday was still pretty busy (about 90%
sold out, I’d estimate), it was less stressful than Saturday and Sunday because
of that 10(ish)% less people. I never felt crushed or overwhelmingly stuffy on
Friday like I did over the rest of the weekend. I arrived at photo C, waited
for the session to start, and the photo was taken. The process is very simple.
You queue, you get to the front, you say ‘hi’, the photo is taken, you say
‘thank you’, you leave. Every now and then you’ll get a little more of a
conversation or something different will happen (like with Rose Leslie on
Sunday), but that’s basically the norm. It’s not the time to give them gifts or
have conversations. It’s a very quick, efficient, simple process. My own major
complaint over the entire LFCC weekend is that almost all of my photo shoots
started 5-20 minutes late. Ultimately, it worked out okay as I didn’t miss any
photo shoots or autographs because of this, but it did lead to unnecessary
stress. I understand that sometimes delays happen, but only ONE out of my fifteen shoots started on
time. It has a domino effect. Instead of walking to your next photo shoot, you
have to run. Instead of having time to stop and get a drink, you have to dash
away to a talk. However, credit where it’s due, outside of that one major
issue, Showmasters did a very good job as organising this convention. There
were minor problems here or there, and there was a staircase issue on Saturday
that I’ll talk about later, but overall it was a great improvement on last year
from an organisational standpoint, and you could see Showmasters trying to
tweak the process for the better as the weekend rolled along. So, well done
Showmasters! Just a little note to attendees: If the crew says to come back in
20 minutes, come back in 20 minutes! Don’t just hover around the photo area
getting in everyone’s way! They call each photo shoot in batches anyway. As
long as you come back at the time they told you to you’ll be fine 99% of the
time.

With James Remar’s photo shoot
now over, I had until 4:05pm to collect a few more autographs. Hell, if I could
get all 5 of the remaining ones completed before 4:05pm (my photo with Kristian
Nairn), I could look around the merch stalls at my own pace before my final
shoot at 5:30pm (with Jason David Frank). This is what ended up happening! I
managed to get through 8 autographs, 3 photos, and merchandise hunting in just
4.5 hours, without needing to queue jump in the photo shoots for clashes at
all. That was unexpected, but pleasantly surprising.

Back upstairs we went. Nothing
like a few more stairs in a warm, crowded arena. Oh, speaking of ‘warm’, I feel
I need to make another public service announcement...

Dear
Convention Attendees,

Deodorant
and anti-perspirant are your friends. Don’t be estranged from them. Embrace
them. Grab that little roll-on stick and slide it over your armpits and body to
your heart’s content. The alternative is much worse. I’ll take you back on a
journey to LFCC 2014. It was a balmy Saturday in July, and I was patiently
(sort of) waiting for my photo shoot with Anthony Head to begin. The air
conditioning was either broken or proving as useful as nipples on a breastplate
(Game Of Thrones jokes!), and people were starting to sweat profusely. Those of
us that used that magic roll-on stick or aerosol were sweating too, but we
still smelled acceptably fresh. However, those people that were
anti-perspirantless quickly started to fill the queuing area up with a ripe
smell. By ripe, I mean rotting skunk ass. One such unfortunate gentleman raised
his arm into the air to stretch, and the teenage girl that was next to him – at
armpit height – literally started crying because of the smell violating her
nostrils from such a close proximity. Don’t be just another statistic; don’t
make people cry with your body odour. Head on over to a supermarket or
equivalent before the convention begins and buy yourself something to cover up your
inevitable stink. There will be 40,000 people in the arena. Even with the air
conditioning, it will be very hot. You will sweat, but you don’t have to smell.

Sincerely,

Shangel.

...Where was I again? Ah, yes.
Autographs!

Luckily, every guest I intended
to get an autograph from on Friday was located on the first floor. This made
the next hour and a half of my day much more convenient than Saturday and
Sunday, where I had to constantly jump between the ground floor (photos), first
floor (photos and autographs), and third floor (autographs).

Keisha Castle-Hughes – Keisha was absolutely lovely!
Like many “Game Of Thrones” actors and actresses, she looks much more glamorous
away from the television set, as most people on “Game Of Thrones” are sweaty and
dirty from fighting or fuc-...’wrestling’. For those of you unaware, Keisha is
from New Zealand (born in Australia). Even though I was aware of this fact, the
accent still threw me at first. I first mentioned to Keisha that she’s had a
fantastic year, being in two of the biggest shows on television almost
simultaneously – “Game Of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead”. Not a bad credits
list for the year, huh? I was aware of the fact that Keisha has read the “A
Song Of Ice And Fire” book series that “Game Of Thrones” is based upon, so I
asked her which characters she always envisioned being when she was reading the
books. Keisha said that she always identified most with Arya Stark, and that
she loves how feisty and strong Arya has become since the start of her journey.
Keisha also told me that she received the news that she got the part of Obara
Sand the same day that Oberyn Martell died in the fourth season of the
show...gain a part, lose a father. Keisha also told me that her husband and
herself are currently working on a screenplay for a feature film (originally a
short) with a western theme. She did explain the premise to me, but I’m not
going to divulge that information here just in case she doesn’t want that
information out in the public yet. Having known little about Keisha before the
past few months, Ididn’t really know
what to expect of her coming into the event. However, I was pleasantly
surprised to find that she’s a loving, interesting person that seems to really
appreciate and care about her fans. Another great experience, and a photo at
the autograph table too! Always a nice bonus! It was even better when I
discovered that she had a ‘no posed photos’ sign up on Saturday and Sunday.
Good thing I met her on Friday then. Guest type: Responder.

I’ve got to mention that the
autograph queues and the virtual queuing tickets system all worked flawlessly
for me this year. I had zero problems getting any autographs, and I have
nothing to complain about whatsoever when it comes to autographs and the
systems that Showmasters had in place. If you had a little experience and a
little intelligence, you should have been fine getting pretty much all the
autographs you wanted. Obviously, a few people like Sigourney Weaver were
probably an exception to that rule, but as I didn’t meet them, I didn’t have
those problems.

Sean Gunn – Sean Gunn was a special guest
at LFCC for me because he was the only Buffyverse guest in attendance that I
hadn’t met before. Sean, of course, played the Bracken Demon ‘Lucas’ in “Angel”
season one’s “Hero”, and played the amusing character ‘Mars’ in season one’s
“She”. Plus, let’s not forget that he played Kraglin in “Guardians Of The
Galaxy” last year, as well as providing the movements for Rocket and Thanos on
set. That’s a lot of interesting stories to tell. For LFCC, I wore my
traditional black suit, black bandana, and red tie, only the tie I was wearing
was new as I received it for my birthday last month...it’s a custom-designed
red tie with the “Angel” logo stitched into the bottom of the tie in black
(thanks, Enza & Chrissy!). This was an obvious and useful ice-breaker for
meeting Sean as he instantly recognised the logo on the tie and wanted to talk
about “Angel”. Now, I’ve been obsessed with “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and
“Angel” since I was eight years old (eighteen
years ago now!). I pride myself on my knowledge of the show(s) and my head
is filled with random, useless, interesting trivia regarding both the shows.
However, I never knew that Sean Gunn was runner-up for the part of Doyle in the
first season of “Angel”. How much different would that season have been if Sean
was Doyle and not Glenn Quinn?! For one, Doyle might have survived a little
longer, as Glenn’s drug problems played a part in Doyle’s character being
killed off a little sooner than originally planned. Sean told me that “Angel”,
to him, is always ‘the show that got away’, so while he enjoys the show a great
deal and enjoyed working on it, he can’t help but feel a little sad that he
missed out on the part of Doyle by such a small margin. Sean appeared in an
episode of “Bones” last year with David Boreanaz, and David remembered Sean’s
audition tape for the part of Doyle. Pretty badass! Also, the character of
Charles Gunn in “Angel” was named after Sean and James Gunn (James is Sean’s
older brother, and the writer/director of “Guardians Of The Galaxy”). There you
go! Dropping some of that useless trivia on you! In addition to talking about
“Angel” and his experiences on the show, we also talked about “Guardians Of The
Galaxy”. No, James hasn’t allowed Sean to read the first draft of the second
film, which James completed a month or two ago. Poor Sean. Sean also filled me
in a little about the process of being Rocket on set and how it differed to
actually acting in a scene. This was easily my favourite conversation of the day
thus far! Sean was interesting, articulate, and really engaged in the
conversation with me. It felt like more of a conversation than a Q & A
session (which is what the autograph table can feel like at times). Even
managed to get a cheeky picture at the autograph table too! When I asked for
the picture, Sean said “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to, but sure! I don’t
understand why I’m not supposed to anyway!”. Interesting. There was no ‘no
posed photos’ sign anywhere, which is the only reason why I asked in the first
place. I’m not sure if Sean was confused or if there was supposed to be a sign
up. Either way, yay for me. Guest type: Conversationalist.

Peter Shinkoda – Peter was the only person on
my list who was a ‘maybe’ guest. If I could find a little extra money and a
little extra time, I’d meet him. With Kurt Angle’s last-minute cancellation due
to neck surgery issues, I decided to – incredibly spontaneously – meet Peter
Shinkoda as his autograph queue had just become completely free. I am so glad that I decided to meet Peter
because he turned out to be one of my very favourite guests of the weekend. Out
of the 21 guests that I met at LFCC 2015, Peter was the happiest to be there.
He radiated warmth and excitement. He
never stopped smiling during the 5 or 6 minutes I talked to him. Absolutely
phenomenal convention guest and I’d highly encourage you to meet Peter if you
get the opportunity to in the future. We started off by talking about
“Daredevil” and how the show was able to take the Marvel Cinematic Universe
back to the street level instead of the global catastrophe level that most of
the films centre around. What was amazing about Peter is that he’s a total
fanboy as well! Peter grew up loving comic books and always wanted to be
Spider-Man or one of the X-Men. After an extensive talk about “Daredevil”, our
favourite comic book series, and how he did many of his own stunts as Nobu in
that spectacular fight scene with Daredevil towards the end of the season, we
transitioned into talking about equality in comic books. Peter is passionate
about diversifying the superhero genre. He said that growing up he didn’t have
any Asian (even though he’s Canadian) superheroes to look up to or emulate.
Certainly no massive, leading superheroes. We discussed how there’s an
alternative reality Spider-Man who’s black, and Jane Foster has just taken over
the mantle of Thor, so it seems as though diversity from the norm (male, white)
may be happening slowly. Peter said he’d love to be part of something
groundbreaking that helps diversify the superhero genre because it’s something
he’s been passionate about since he was a child. Between nerding out over comic
books and discussing “Daredevil”, Peter also complimented me on my suit, my
tie, and my eyeliner. He told me that he used to wear eyeliner a lot as well
when he was younger. When I asked if I could take a picture with him, he
enthusiastically said “yes!” and said that he wanted a picture with the ‘cool
tie guy’. I’ve never felt so complimented by a guest! Meeting Peter blew away
my expectations. Not only was he really friendly and enthusiastic, but he also
talked to you like you were on the same level as him. No barrier, no keeping
you at arm’s length. What an absolutely phenomenal gentleman! A+ guest! Guest
type: Conversationalist.

Gregg Henry – Like Sean Gunn, Gregg Henry is
someone who appealed to me for Marvel and Joss Whedon related reasons. Not only
was he in Firefly’s “The Train Job”, but he also played Peter Quill’s
grandfather in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”. This is not where the Gregg
Henry-Sean Gunn relationship ends, as Gregg is good friends with both Sean and
James Gunn, and often makes appearances in James Gunn’s projects. As something
of a diehard Browncoat, I needed to meet Gregg. There are so few actors that
appeared in the short-lived phenomena that when they arrive in your country,
you grab the opportunity with both hands. Like most other people I met, Gregg
was in high spirits and seemed to be enjoying himself. Ironically, our
conversation didn’t start by discussing “Firefly” or “Guardians Of The Galaxy”.
We talked about his role as Dennis Rader in “The Hunt For The BTK Killer”.
Gregg told me that playing a well-known serial killer was exciting, but also
daunting because in researching Dennis Rader, he couldn’t find anything
redeeming about him whatsoever. Usually, fictional villains have something that you can latch on to. What
makes a great villain great is the knowledge that they think they’re right and
they’re doing the right thing. This was impossible to do with Dennis Rader as
he was a real person, who not only killed people, but bound, tortured, and
killed them (hence the ‘BTK’ nickname). Gregg said that filming “The Hunt For
The BTK Killer” for six weeks was gruelling and a very dark time because it was
hard to shake off Dennis after he left the set and returned home. It was very
interesting to hear his techniques on dealing with playing such a despicable
psychopath. Next, we discussed “Guardians Of The Galaxy”. I told him that I
hope to see him appear in the 2nd film, even if it was just a
flashback. After all, Gregg appears in almost all of James Gunn’s projects, so
it would be disappointing if Gregg wasn’t in the 2nd film. Gregg
laughed and said that he likes the way I think and that he’ll have to talk to
James Gunn about making a cameo. Even if he was just playing an alien that was
serving drinks or something. Gregg didn’t disappoint. Yet another excellent
guest to meet...and a photo at the table too! Guest type: Responder.

With seven autographs down (and
seven g0od-great experiences), it was time for the final one. Using my one
virtual queuing ticket of the day, I headed over to Jason David Frank and
joined the back of the queue.

Jason David Frank – Now, I will readily admit that
I’m a little bit of a Jason David Frank fanboy. The first two things I ever
remember loving in life were wrestling and the “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers”.
I used to wear my VHS tapes out by watching them so frequently. So, when the
opportunity to meet Tommy Oliver arose, it couldn’t be turned down. Sadly,
because Jason David Frank’s queue was so large,I didn’t get a great deal of time with him. I’d say about 90 seconds.
However, those 90 seconds were blissful. As I knew he’d be discussing “Power
Rangers” all day, I decided to talk to him about his mixed martial arts career,
and whether a potential fight with CM Punk is on the cards (as Jason has
previously requested it). Jason told me about his recent training and said that
he’d love to fight CM Punk in the UFC. I finished our conversation by thanking
him for coming. It was a genuine pleasure to meet the original green/white
Power Ranger. That’s ¾ of the original male Power Rangers down, just Austin St.
John to go! Guest type: Responder.

By this point it was approaching
4pm, so I headed over to photo area A (also on the first floor) for my Kristian
Nairn photoshoot, starting at 4:05pm. Queuing was fine, the photoshoot went off
without a hitch (although, again, a little late), and I left feeling warm and
fuzzy...happiness or heat and light-headedness, you decide! You can’t actually
see it in the photo, but Kristian was semi-sitting on a chair for the shoot.
His back was clearly giving him trouble because he was walking around all
hunched up throughout the weekend. After Kristian’s photo, myself, John, and
Hannah wandered around the merchandise stalls for an hour, during which time I
bought a badass Daryl Dixon action figure and a Rick Grimes action figure...got
a great price too because I bought both! Then I headed over to photo area C for
my 5:30pm photoshoot with Jason David Frank, which also went off without a
hitch, and was also a little late.

10 hours after leaving home, my
day was finally over. The three of us decided to head back to our room at the
W6 Guesthouse, ready to relax, unwind, and mentally prepare for the expected
horrors of the next day. When we arrived at the W6 Guesthouse, we couldn’t get
in.The key didn’t work to the outside
door. Then, after being let in by the house’s supervisor, we arrived in our room
to discover that the sheets and pillow cases were on the bed ready to be constructed by us! Excuse
me? Am I house-keeping as well as a paying customer? It’s okay though, gentle
readers. After we’d finished making our beds, we could relax in the shared bathroom
and make beautiful microwave meals and tea in the shared kitchen (neither of
which were advertised on the website as ‘shared’). And, just to be extra kind,
the lovely staff of the W6 Guesthouse left us someone else’s half-drank bottle
of water, a can of Pepsi under the bed, and a condom (used) in the upper
section of the wardrobe, just in case we needed anything particularly salty in
the middle of the night. Ahh, sweet, relaxing bliss...not. To be fair, the beds
were pretty comfy once made up and I was too tired to care about switching to
another place to stay. Tired and a little concerned that I could smell the
salty condom wafting out through the wardrobe, I fell asleep for 2 hours.

Saturday. The day of dread for
many convention attendees. As a general rule, it’s overcrowded and the most
chaotic day. People are more stressed, more pushy (both physically and
verbally), and getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ is twice as challenging as
Friday and Sunday. However, gentle readers, I was not to be deterred. The
itinerary for Saturday was almost identical to Friday – four studio photos,
seven autographs. However, with Rose Leslie’s cancellation on the Saturday
morning (she was still appearing Sunday), the amount of autographs required
dropped to six. Luckily, my photo with Rose was booked for Sunday, so I didn’t
have to worry about getting that rescheduled for Sunday...or as it’s otherwise
known, ‘Studio Sunday’, as I originally had 13 photos booked for that day (it
was eventually down to 7). The autographs required for Saturday were Rey
Mysterio, Rose Leslie, Carice Van Houten, Hayley Atwell, Jessica
Henwick, David Bradley, and Alexander Siddig (who was a last-minute replacement
for the irreplaceable Charles Dance). Looking at that list, I expected everyone
to be virtual queuing except perhaps Jessica Henwick. This was indeed the case,
except Alexander Siddig was also not virtual queuing. Even though Charles Dance
was scheduled for the 3rd floor, his replacement was sat down on the
first floor...and arrived at 1:30pm instead of the previously scheduled 9:30am.
No matter, he was only announced a few days before the event. I’m sure he had
to fly in from somewhere and was probably pretty exhausted. This left 4 virtual
queuing tickets to grab as early as possible on Saturday morning. The last
thing I wanted to do was miss someone, so myself and John (Hannah took the day
off Saturday) left our beautifully grotesque room at 5:45am on Saturday morning
and walked to the Olympia. We were in the queue by 6:05am, and were roughly 80th-100th
from the front. Three hours and one incredibly
numb ass later, it was time to enter the venue once again.Yet again, we were in quickly and there were
no delays or problems.

Due to the 2nd and 3rd
floors not being used on Friday, we had no idea how to get to them. However,
after a little confusion on the first floor, we figured out the way pretty
promptly. Within moments of arriving on the 3rd floor, I had grabbed
all of the virtual queuing tickets I needed...Hayley Atwell #96, Rey Mysterio
#13, David Bradley #7, and Carice Van Houten #41. Woohoo! All of those should
be absolutely fine! To be honest, after you’ve grabbed your virtual queuing
tickets, a lot of the stress of the day drains away. You can relax and live
comfortably in the knowledge that you can return later when it’s more
convenient and get the autographs then. Also, once again, that sweet, sweet 3rd
floor air conditioning was blissful. If it wasn’t for photo shoots, I’d never
have left that floor. My first scheduled photo shoot was David Bradley at
9:30am in photo D. However, due to needing virtual queuing tickets, I decided
to go to the afternoon shoot at 2:35pm. With Charles Dance’s cancellation as
well, this left my first photo shoot of the day being Rey Mysterio at 10:55am
in photo B. This gave me just over an hour to grab a few of the autographs.
There was just one problem...Hayley Atwell and David Bradley were away in photo
shoots, while Alexander Siddig, Rey Mysterio, and Jessica Henwick weren’t at
their tables yet. This narrowed down my first autograph of the day to one
person...

Carice Van Houten – Surprisingly, since the event,
I’ve read a lot of stories of Carice being aloof or unresponsive at the
autograph table. In fact, it’s even been reported on some Dutch websites that
Carice and her boyfriend broke up over LFCC weekend (no idea if it’s true). In
addition to all of that, as Saturday rolled on, Carice became sick and didn’t
return to LFCC on Sunday. Just my luck, my photo with her was booked for
Sunday. That’s 3 conventions where I’m supposed to have had a photo with her
that have now been cancelled. I SHALL GET
IT ONE DAY, DAMN IT! However, it wasn’t all bad, as I did manage to get my
autograph. Meeting Carice early turned out to be an excellent stroke of luck
because it was before she was feeling sick and starting to not say very much at
the autograph table. I had a very pleasant 90-second conversation with her
about “Game Of Thrones” (of course) and her music career. Carice gave eye
contact the entire time that she wasn’t writing (a lot of people didn’t have
that same experience from what I’ve read), she was smiling constantly, and she
couldn’t have been friendlier! I was so surprised to read some of the stories
that have emerged on the forums since LFCC’s conclusion. Carice seemed
genuinely flattered and excited that I listen to her music, and she also
offered some theories and ideas for how she sees Melisandre’s story continuing
now that Stannis is no longer in the picture. It was exactly what you expect
from an autograph encounter. Very friendly, very polite, nice eye contact, and
a wonderful experience. When you add in the rumoured
break-up and the sickness, this experience becomes even more miraculous. Guest
type: Responder.

Soon after I finished talking to
Carice, Jessica Henwick arrived on the 3rd floor, so I joined the
back of her 15-person queue that had formed while people waited for her to
arrive. The only annoying thing about this experience was that a vendor was at
the front of the queue and must have had 30+ items to get signed. Now, I’m not
against vendors getting items signed. They need to and they have as much right
as everyone else if they follow the same procedures as us. However, there
should be a 5 or 10 autograph cap. That way, people wouldn’t be stuck waiting
for ages, and the vendor could always go back later in the day to get 5 or 10
more. The diamond guests have a maximum of 5 autographs allowed (you can always
queue again), and I think that non-diamond guests should too. However, once I
got to the front of the queue, Jessica was terrific.

Jessica Henwick – Like many people at
conventions, Jessica assumed I was in cosplay and asked who I was dressed as.
Between guests, crew members, and attendees, this happens about 30 times a day
at LFCC. I don’t mind it at all! In fact, I take it as a compliment that my
regular look is so unique people think it must be something off the television
or from a book series! From then on, whenever I saw Jessica, I was known as
‘not a cosplay suit guy!’. LOLs. Jessica told me that she had to train with a
bullwhip for six months in
preparation for her role as Nymeria Sand of “Game Of Thrones” season 5. Now that’s dedication. SIX MONTHS! I’d have
given up after 6 weeks and just gone to Nandos or something. Jessica also told
me that Keisha (Obara Sand) and Rosabell (Tyene Sand) had to learn how to act
while she extended the bullwhip and cracked it backwards because it would make
such a loud noise that they’d jump. It took a little while to adjust to the
sound without flinching.Obviously,
Jessica couldn’t talk about Star Wars Episode VII, but I did express how
excited I am to see her, Miltos (Syrio Forel from “Game Of Thrones”), and
Gwendolyn (Brienne from “Game Of Thrones”) in the film when it’s released.
Finally, we talked about what it was like filming in the Alcazar of Seville,
which was used as the set for the Water Gardens in “Game Of Thrones”. Like Toby
Sebastian last month and Alexander Siddig later in the day, Jessica was blown
away by the set and couldn’t believe that they were allowed to film there. In
addition to that, everything you see on screen is legitimate. There was nothing
added to the set or altered whatsoever (according to Jessica and Toby). I must
visit the Alcazar of Seville at some point soon. It’s absolutely beautiful on
screen. Like Peter the day before and Rose the following day, Jessica didn’t
stop smiling the entire time I was at the autograph table, and she made eye
contact frequently. These are the little extras that you look for to make an
experience great! You need to feel that they are happy to be there and
genuinely excited to meet you (and their other fans). Jessica radiated
positivity and excitement, which coupled with the conversation, made for a
great experience. Keisha and Jessica both had ‘no posed photos’ signs up at the
autograph table. As I had a picture with Keisha at the autograph table the day
before, I didn’t want a picture with one Sand Snake, but not the other, so I
very, very quickly dashed down to the ground floor to buy a studio photo
ticket. The photo session was scheduled to start 10 minutes after I left
Jessica’s autograph table. Have you ever tried to run down three floors, queue
up, buy the ticket, run back up one floor, and get to the appropriate area in
10 minutes, while 40,000 other people are trying to get to their own
destinations? Not a fun experience or pretty sight. However, I got there just
in time and the photo itself turned out great, so it was definitely worth the
suicide run. Jessica greeted me warmly in the photo shoot and remembered me
from the autograph table by name. Always a nice little bonus! Guest type: Responder.

Tired and seeing funny little
spots in front of my eyes, it was time to head back down to the ground floor
for my 10:55am photo session with Rey Mysterio in photo area B. It’s at this
point that I’ll give a shout-out to three very important crew members from the
LFCC weekend (Saturday and Sunday in particular). First, is Luke (and Chris!),
who was organising photo area A most of the weekend. I’ve been to a few events
with Luke before and he’s always been absolutely phenomenal. A lot of the big
guests were at photo area A, and photo area A was not ideally located. Yet,
given the space and time constraints, Luke held that area together for two
straight days. Every photo I had in area A went smoothly. When I had a clash,
Luke allowed me to join the queue early. By Sunday morning, Luke’s voice was
gone, so he was communicating primarily through Chris or his white board – and
keeping everyone entertained with amusing notes along the way. Luke was able to
diffuse tension when shoots started late, and he managed to make people smile while they were exhausted and
frustrated. Kudos! Also, why don’t the crew members at photo areas have
megaphones or something?! Insanity. Secondly, is Stuart, who was running photo
area B for most of the weekend. Once again, like Luke, Stuart was incredible.
Unlike some other photo areas, Stuart was clued up on the order to call tickets
in. He kept things organised, had a booming voice, and helped people out
wherever he could. I actually went up to Stuart on Sunday afternoon and thanked
him for doing such a great job over LFCC weekend. Crew members like Luke, Stuart,
and Phil are invaluable. They really
are the difference between a shit weekend and a great weekend sometimes when it
comes to photo sessions. It’s not just the organisation skills either. It’s
making sure nobody queue jumps, it’s checking that people are being honest
about their batch number, it’s making jokes and keeping people entertained
while they’re exhausted and waiting for a photo shoot that’s running 15 minutes
late. Finally, I must give a shout-out to my friend Phil. Those of you that
have read many of my convention reviews will know Phil as the man who organised
Stan Lee’s final photo session over LFCC weekend last year. The most unenviable
of tasks. This year, Phil was organising Hayley Atwell’s photo sessions on
Sunday. Once again, a very unenviable task when you think about how many people
there are to get through. Plus, you have people hovering around even though
they’ve been told their batch will not be called for 20 minutes, you have
people constantly badgering him with questions, and you have people shuffling
forwards into the white line zone allocated for active queuing. Somehow, some
way, Phil kept it together and got that queue running like clockwork. I can
genuinely say that crew members like Luke, Stuart, and Phil made my weekend
vastly better and allowed me to get everything done that I intended to do. If
you’re reading this, thank you.

Rey Mysterio’s photo session went
off without a hitch. I must mention how terrific Rey is with the children in
his photo queue. He made an extra effort to talk to every one of them that was
there when I was, pressed his head against theirs, and made them feel special.
To many people – especially young people – Rey Mysterio is a real life superhero.
He’s the closest you’re going to get to a real Spider-Man, so watching Rey
interact with these kids was a special moment. It tells you so much about the
type of man he is. Plus, Rey was also terrific with all the adults too! An
absolutely tremendous man!

My next photo session was
scheduled for 11:15am at photo area A. It was Dumbledore himself, Michael
Gambon. As you can imagine (especially as he was only there one day), his queue
was insanity. Yet, once again, the team at photo area A held it together very
well! I must admit, I did feel very sorry for Michael. He was on the 1st
floor all day, he had hundreds of photos and autographs to get through, and he
looked totally exhausted. After all, the man is 74 years old! I wouldn’t have
objected to him being sat down in his photo session like Stan Lee was last
year, yet Michael seemed game for everything. It’s definitely one of the
highlights of my life to meet the actor behind one of my favourite characters
from my co-favourite ever book series (from Azkaban onwards of course). By this
point, it was 11:30am. I had two photo shoots remaining and four autographs
left. However, due to some shoes that were less comfortable than expected, I
already had 5 blisters on my feet. One of which was large and just below my
toes on my left foot. This made walking...challenging...for the rest of Saturday
and most of Sunday. Alas, I soldiered on, back up to the 3rd floor
for some much needed air conditioning and autographs.

Rey Mysterio – Ugh. This was the only guest
of the weekend that I was starstruck by. It’s so rare these days that I get
starstruck because I’m quite used to the process by now, but occasionally
someone will come along that will turn my insides to goo and force my tongue to
become four times larger than it usually is. THANKFULLY, by the time I got to the front of the queue, I’d remembered
how to talk again. Vowels and everything. The first thing Rey did was offer his
hand for a handshake and said ‘hi, nice to meet you’. After a second or two of
me staring at his face, I remembered, once again, that this is the time to use
those pesky words that I just remembered how to say. I said ‘hi’ back, and Rey
looked at the 8” x 10” and asked if it was from a video game or if it was
actually him (THQ must be beaming over that comment – the quality of the
characters these days are so lifelike!). I responded that I thought it was from
the video game, but I wasn’t sure. After this, it was time to discuss
wrestling! Yay! We talked about his time in WWE, WCW, Eddie Guerrero, and what
he’s up to these days. We talked about the current state of his knees. Finally,
I couldn’t contain all my euphoria any longer. I had to thank him and tell him
how much it meant to me to meet him. So, I did. I talked about my childhood, my
teenage years, and how Eddie Guerrero and he altered the course of my life in
some ways. Rey seemed genuinely touched at the sentiments (which flowed out of
my mouth much faster than intended – it was like a flood of words in a matter
of seconds, I swear), and thanked me. Shockingly, Rey allowed a photo at the
autograph table as well! I don’t recall ever getting a photo at the autograph
table with a £25 guest before! Very cool little addition to the experience for
sure. Guest type: Responder.

How do I speech? How do my vocal
cords work? What is this life? Where am I? – Oh, look, a Lego Batman cosplay!
This was the state of my brain after meeting Rey Mysterio. Of course, I played
it totally cool when talking to John about it, but inside I was pudding. No
time to soak up the moment though, Shangel. It’s time to meet Hayley Atwell!

Hayley Atwell – I knew coming into the event
that Hayley was going to be very popular and busy. Not only is she the leading
actress in “Agent Carter”, but she’s appeared in the Captain America films, and only cost £20! Seriously, when
Hayley was first announced as a guest for LFCC, I dreaded opening the thread
(same goes for Michael Gambon). I was expecting £30-40 for a photo or
autograph. I was shocked to see that it was £20 and actually believed it to be
a typo at first. Then, when the photos were released on Eventbrite at £20, I
was pleasantly surprised. That’s a great price! Alas, the downside is that I
knew her queue was going to be longer than the list of 70’s entertainers
currently facing jail time, which meant that time for conversation would be at
a minimum. This was the case. However, I did get a nice 60 seconds with her at
the table, which seems to be more than most people did, so I can’t complain too
loudly. I thanked her for coming and told her how refreshing it was to see a
kickass female leading a television show once again (there haven’t been many
since the Buffy/Xena days). Hayley thanked me and told me to look out for a
little more ass-kicking in “Ant-Man” (which opened right before LFCC weekend).
I then told her how awesome the Dub-Smash wars were between “Agent Carter” and
“Agents Of SHIELD”, and she told me that herself and James D’Arcy flew to
Atlanta just to get Chris Evans to appear in one of them so that they could win
the ‘war’. Absolutely hilarious to think how much money they spent on plane tickets
just to win a mock war against Clark Gregg and Chloe Bennet. Even though the
experience was relatively brief, I thought it was fantastic! A) I got 60
seconds, which was more than expected. B) The autograph was personalised to me,
which some of the bigger guests don’t have time to do (luckily, every autograph
in my collection is personalised to me!). C) She gave eye contact and smiled
constantly, even though she was jetlagged and her queue was huge! Woohoo! Guest
type: Big Guest.

David Bradley – After finishing up with Hayley
(I stand by that choice of phrasing), I headed over to David Bradley, who was
right next to her on the 3rd floor. I’ve since read on the forums
that people didn’t get much time with David because he was really busy, so I
must have caught him at a different time to those people because I talked to
David for a solid 4 or 5 minutes! And, I wasn’t even leading the conversation!
He was! I didn’t want to take up too much time because the queue was so large,
yet David just kept talking about “Game Of Thrones” enthusiastically. When I
first arrived at the table, I told him that I love him as Walder Frey, even
though he’ll always be Filch to me because of my childhood with Harry Potter. I
then said, “now, don’t take this the wrong way, but I do hope that Arya Stark
kills Walder Frey in the most violent way possible very soon”, which got a big
laugh from David (his laugh is terrific). After that, I asked him if filming
the Red Wedding was as horrific as watching it. David said that he must be a
little bit of a psychopath because he absolutely loved filming it. He said he
couldn’t get enough of it because he knew that they were filming something
special that was going to ‘absolutely destroy the fans’. David then told me
that the speech Walder Frey gives just before the wedding took 70 takes to get
absolutely perfect! SEVENTY TAKES! FUCK. THAT. Apparently, those 70 takes took
about a day to shoot, and the next week was dedicated to the massacre aspect of
the Red Wedding. To this day I still get chills when I hear “The Rains Of
Castamere” play. David went on to say that he hopes that Arya kills Walder Frey
one day too because it would be the most fitting death for the despicable
character he portrays. I thanked David for his time, and he responded with “it
was my pleasure, Shane!”. Using my name = appreciated bonus. I love it when the
guests are personable with you. Finally, David was also offering photos at the
autograph table! Just like Rey Mysterio, that was totally unexpected (and not
something he was doing all weekend). Guest type: Conversationalist.

With five autographs completed
and just Alexander Siddig remaining, myself and John decided to head downstairs
to the ground floor in preparation for my photo with David Bradley at 2:35pm in
photo area D. However, as we approached the stairwell/lifts part of the 3rd
floor, we realised that it was impossible to move. The stairs were filled with
people, the queues for the lifts were longer than some of the photo shoot
queues, and people were getting very frustrated. Ultimately, it took 20 minutes to get from the 3rd
floor to the 1st floor. While this isn’t as bad as LFCC was
on the Saturday afternoon last year (it took 45 minutes to get across the
hall!), it was still a major fire hazard. If the alarm suddenly went off,
people would have been trampled to death or burned alive. A little while later,
the goods lifts were opened up and used as well, which took a little pressure
off the crush of people, but not much. Sunday didn’t have this problem
whatsoever as far as I could see.

While myself and John were sat
down outside photo area D waiting for David Bradley’s photo session to begin, I
heard the crew members asking if anyone else was there for Sean Gunn (whose
photo session ended about 15 minutes before David Bradley’s was to begin).
Knowing the hectic photo day I had on Sunday, I spontaneously decided to ask if
I could have my photo on Saturday instead (I had it booked for Sunday). Sean
still had a few minutes left in his session, but there was nobody left to get
their photo, so the crew said it was absolutely fine. Phew! One less thing to
worry about the next day. As always, Sean was a thoroughly nice guy in the
photo session and remembered me from the autograph table the day before by
name. Ahh, glorious. Not long after this, David’s photo session began (after
starting 10 minutes or so late). Just like with Sean, David remembered me by name
and said ‘hi Shane!’ before the photo was taken. It’s little additions like
this that I’ve grown to adore over the years. Straight after David’s session
ended, it was time for Alexander Siddig’s photo session in the same photo area
(D) as Sean Gunn and David Bradley. This was the time where the unfortunate
incident happened with crew member Justin as I was trying to explain to him
what was going to happen if old store tickets bought on the day (or the day
before) were called before the e-tickets. He snapped, called them first anyway,
people got annoyed, and half the people with e-tickets pushed into the queue
anyway. No matter, it was my last photo shoot of the day and the only autograph
I had remaining was Alexander Siddig, who couldn’t be in two places at once
unless he’s way more skilled at cloning than I’ve given him credit for.
Alexander was very friendly in the photo session too. Gave everyone a
handshake, greeted them, smiled, and looked positively thrilled to be there
considering he must have been exhausted.

Alexander Siddig - By 3:40pm, Alexander Siddig’s
photo shoot was over, so I decided to head up to the first floor (by myself, as
John had a photo session) and queue up for Alexander’s autograph. I was about 5th
in the queue, which was fortunate as it started to get crowded just after I
left. Considering Alexander was only there from 1:30-6pm(ish), his queue wasn’t
insanity as expected. It was a nice, relaxed pace, and I spent about 4 minutes
at the autograph table with him talking about, you guessed it, “Game Of
Thrones”. Due to Alexander being such a late announcement, I didn’t really have
time to plan anything to say to him. So, I relied on my old method of winging
it. We discussed Doran Martell’s secret plans from the book series and discussed
whether or not the show was going to implement them in the coming season. We
also discussed how we thought they might differ from the book series if they
did decide to add them to the television show. Alexander also told me about the
surreal experience of working in the Alcazar of Seville, which only heightened
my desire to want to go there one day soon. In addition to having the 8” x 10”
signed, I also got my House Martell art print signed, which I bought at “Stoke
Con Trent” (greatest convention name ever) earlier this year, and had signed by
Toby Sebastian (Trystane Martell) at “Collectormania: Milton Keynes” a month
before LFCC. If we exclude the Sands from the equation, it’s just Pedro Pascal
needed for that House Martell art print! C’mon Pedro! Come to England! I’m
still bitter he cancelled on LFCC last year. Basically, Alexander was lovely.
He really made you feel welcomed and appreciated. Plus, I don’t think he
stopped smiling once. I love that almost everyone I met over LFCC weekend
seemed genuinely excited to be there. Guest type: Responder.

All six autographs acquired, all
four (which turned into six with Sean Gunn and Jessica Henwick) studio photos
completed. After a quick look around some of the merchandise stalls that I
didn’t get to the day before, myself and John decided to head back to the W6
Guesthouse. The rancid smell of body odour at LFCC simply couldn’t compare to
the smell of stale semen at the Guesthouse. After going out for an exciting
dinner of Subway and reduced (25p!) chocolate shortbread from M & S, we
decided to head back to the Guesthouse and chill for a few hours after the
hectic drama that is LFCC Saturday. One of the best things about the Guesthouse
(one of the only good things, I should say) is that the shared bathroom has one
shower cubicle...with three shower heads! I felt like I was in a particularly
choppy rainstorm. It was bliss to wash away all the sweat and grime of
conventioning...just in time to go to bed and do the same thing the next day!

Sunday morning followed the same
process as Saturday, only with the additional hassle of putting all the bags in
the car before heading to the Olympia due to needing to check out of the W6
Jizzhouse...sorry, Guesthouse. Once again, we arrived by just after 6am, once
again, we were about 80th-100th in the queue. It was
during this queuing process where I discovered that Carice Van Houten had
cancelled (no photoshoot for me! Waaaah!), and that Rose Leslie was definitely
attending LFCC Sunday (yaaaaay!). With Carice cancelling, with Sean Gunn
completed the day before, and with the previous cancellations of Emily Kinney,
Natalia Tena, Kurt Angle, and Maja Stojan, the amount of photo shoots I had to
whizz through on Sunday was reduced to six (Iain Glen, Rose Leslie, Catherine
Tate, Robert Englund, Jonathan Pryce, and Hayley Atwell). Plus, three
autographs to attain – Iain Glen, Rose Leslie, and Gemma Whelan. Carice was
scheduled to be my first photo shoot of the day at 9:30am, so her cancellation
allowed me to grab virtual queuing tickets for Iain Glen and Rose Leslie, which
would have otherwise been collected by Hannah or John for me. I will admit,
LFCC Sunday was blissful compared to
Saturday, due to my schedule changes. After collecting the virtual queuing
tickets (#18 for Rose Leslie (which was hand-written as they weren’t ready) and
#40 for Iain Glen), I decided to head back down to the ground floor (from the 3rd
fucking floor again! – So much walking!) and chill out by photo area B, ready
for my 10:05am photo shoot with Iain Glen. Iain Glen is a beautiful man, isn’t
he? So very dashing. The photo shoot started late (shocking!), but wasn’t so
late that it impeded my photo shoot with Rose Leslie at 1025am in photo area A
(on the first floor!). Rose Leslie’s photo shoot was particularly memorable for
a few reasons...

1)She
didn’t stop smiling the entire time, regardless of whether she was talking,
having her photo taken, or waiting for the next person. Absolutely incredible!

2)About
5 places in front of me was someone cosplaying as Ygritte. Rose Leslie exploded with delight at the cosplay and
spent a good 20 seconds telling her how fantastic she looked before the photo
was taken. Then, after the photo was taken, Rose asked for a 2nd one
to be taken, where Rose and the girl cosplaying as Ygritte were holding the bow
outstretched with an arrow notched. Out of everyone I met at LFCC, Rose seemed
the most genuinely excited to meet everyone. People like Rose Leslie, David
Bradley, and Peter Shinkoda (amongst others at LFCC) are the reason you attend.
They make you feel so special.

3)Two
places in front of me in the queue was a gentleman wearing a t-shirt he designed.
It had a picture of Ygritte on the front, with the caption “Jon Snow knows two
things – nothing and how to lick pussy” surrounding the picture. Rose’s face
was hilarious when she saw it. Initially, she saw the picture and smiled. Then,
you could see her face register the words and it was classic. She looked
half-embarrassed and half-amused. It was awesome. She asked where they sell
that t-shirt and the gentleman in question told her that he designed it
himself.

4)Rose
took a few seconds to talk to everyone before the photo was taken. She looked
everyone in the eye before it was taken, said ‘hi’, and had a brief second of
chit-chat. Class act through and through.

Straight after Rose’s photo (in
the same area – A) was Robert Englund’s photo. The queues were once again
pretty ridiculous. Firstly, you have people lingering around photo area A for
Rose Leslie’s shoot, which hadn’t quite finished yet – plus, she had to get
through all the photos from Saturday and Sunday
because she had to cancel on Saturday. Then, you had everyone waiting for
Robert Englund’s photo. Luckily, I was batch 1, so it was only diamond pass
holders and gold pass holders before me, so I was in and out pretty quickly.
I’ve seen many studio photo pictures of Robert Englund with fans before, and
they’re always pretty wacky. He seems to want to pull a pose in every picture.
Mine was no exception. Within seconds of getting to the front, he grabbed my
tie (which he loved) and had the picture taken in full Freddy persona. It was
great! And turned out to be one of my favourite pictures of the weekend.

Within
the space of an hour and a quarter, my first three photo shoots were finished.
However, there was no time to relax, as right after Robert Englund was Hayley
Atwell, down on the ground floor in photo area C. Up, down, up, down, up,down. My poor blisters (which now numbered
13) were killing me. No matter, Agent Peggy Carter should help take the
uncomfortable sensation away. Hayley’s photo area (as mentioned above) was
manned by legendary Showmasters crew member, Phil. With Phil at the helm,
everything ran smoothly for me and I was in pretty quickly as I was batch 1. Of
course, Phil was also clued up to the highlighted old style tickets, so there
was no drama with the order things were called in either. Alongside Robert
Englund, Hayley Atwell’s photo was probably my favourite of the weekend. Even
with the size of the queue, Hayley still took the time to look me in the eye
and say ‘hi’, which isn’t something everyone got from the autograph table on
Sunday, so once again I was feeling pretty euphoric.

With four photos down by midday
and my next one (Catherine Tate) scheduled for 2:30pm, I had a couple of hours
free to collect the three autographs I had left for the weekend. With Iain and
Rose’s queues looking rather long, I decided to go and meet Gemma Whelan first.
Also, special shout-out to the 3rd floor once again. Your air
conditioning was spectacular, and I love you. While waiting to get to the front
of Gemma’s autograph queue, I browsed the Showmasters forums on my phone and
discovered that Robert Englund wasn’t signing autographs on Sunday due to how
long it takes to get the Freddy Krueger makeup applied (the makeup photo shoot
was part of the diamond package). This included people with a diamond ticket!
One of the major perks of the diamond ticket was a guaranteed autograph. Not a great precedent to set to have one of
the diamond guests not complete all of the guaranteed
autographs during the first convention using them. However, Showmasters did
try to appease people by offering A) the opportunity to get it at another
convention that Robert attends (with free entry into the event), or B) getting
a refund for the cost of the autograph, plus an extra £5 refunded, so at least
they were trying to make it okay. However, still not a great precedent to set
for future diamond pass guests.

Gemma Whelan – I always wondered what Gemma
would look like if she smiled. While it’s a rarity on “Game Of Thrones”, in
real life she doesn’t seem to stop. As I got to the front of the queue, Gemma
looked up at me and asked if I minded if she called the pub quickly to book a
table for the pub quiz. I said that was totally fine and then proceeded to hum
quietly to myself while she was on the phone so I didn’t hear her phone number
(which she needed to give the pub). A lesser person might have memorised it,
but not this guy! Mostly, it’s because I didn’t hear the 3rd or 4th
digits, but that’s beside the point! Gemma
thanked me for my patience and we began our little conversation. I told Gemma
that I’m a big fan of her stand-up comedy, and I asked her if she had any dates
lined up. She said that she doesn’t at present, but she did have one last
Saturday, which went very well and the crowd was large and loud. Our
conversation then transitioned to, once again, “Game Of Thrones”. We talked
about her role on the show, particularly her first episode in the 2nd
season, where Yara rides a horse with Theon. Gemma told me that this was her
audition scene and she had to mimic...how can I put this delicately...wanking
off an imaginary person in front of her during the audition scene. Well, that
sounds like a ridiculously funny and uncomfortable audition, doesn’t it? She
got the part though, so she must have been doing something right...I wonder if
it was the hand action that swayed them? I then told Gemma that I hope to see
her back next season, and she said that she’d love to return, but wasn’t sure
if Yara was back in season six yet. I told her about the casting calls for
season six, and how one of them sounds exactly like Euron Greyjoy. If that’s
the case, Yara will almost definitely be back! I asked her if it was okay to
get a picture with her at the table, and she said, “YES! Of course! Especially
after telling me I’ll be back next season! How exciting!”. So, if Yara isn’t
back, that’s my bad. However, it does look promising. Lovely 5-minute
conversation, photo at the autograph table, and
a wonderful experience. All for £10! Bargain! Guest type: Responder.

Iain Glen – After leaving Gemma’s
autograph table, Iain’s queue looked a little smaller than Rose Leslie’s queue,
so myself and Hannah decided to go and meet Iain first. I later discovered that
Iain was so busy that he wasn’t personalising (he was only there from 10am-5pm)
for a large portion of the day and wasn’t actually personalising when I met
him. However, nobody told me that (they told Hannah just after me), so I asked
for my autograph to be personalised to me, which Iain graciously did. How was I
to know? Nobody told me! Even though his queue was rammed (so very rammed),
Iain still took the time to have a little chat with me about the process of
learning the fight scenes for season five, which was a particularly physical
season for Jorah. Iain told me that he had a lot of fighting experience from
previous projects, but this was a little different because there was so much of
it – particularly the fighting pit scene in episode 9, “The Dance Of Dragons”
(A.K.A. The episode where Shireen burns). Even though the conversation was
brief (3o seconds or so), Iain came across as a genuine, warm human being. It’s
funny, after every convention I read about many other people’s experiences, and
a lot of them seem to have a few negative ones amongst the mostly positive
ones. However, everyone I met at LFCC ruled! 99.9% of people I’ve ever met at
conventions have ruled! I don’t know if it’s lucky timing or something else,
but I always seem to have a terrific time with everyone. Guest type: Big Guest.

Rose Leslie – Ironically, my last autograph
of the weekend was also the best in many ways. After seeing Rose interact with
everyone (including me) at the photo shoot, I knew that Rose was going to be
wonderful. She just glows when you’re around her. She never stops smiling,
she’s constantly warm and friendly, and she likes to have a conversation with
all of her fans. So much so that by 1:30pm, her virtual queuing numbers were
only up to 70 (while people like Iain and Hayley Atwell were at 300-400).
Remember, gold ticket holders don’t need a virtual queuing ticket for
non-diamond guests, so I’d imagine she’d signed 250 or so autographs by 1:30pm.
I have since heard that later in the
afternoon Rose was talking a little less so that she could meet more people
(and less people would go home empty handed), but at the time I met her, she
was still in talking mode. When I got to the front of the queue, one of the
Showmasters crew members asked if a disabled gentleman could pop in before me.
Of course, I said that was totally fine! I had an hour until I needed to do
anything else, and this gentleman had literally only came back on Sunday to
meet Rose. After Rose and this gentleman’s conversation had finished and he
left, Rose turned to me and thanked me sincerely for my patience (as did the
crew member). Just watching Rose interact with the disable gentleman was lovely
to be honest. She’s so warm and appreciative of everyone! Just like Rey
Mysterio was the day before with the children. Myself and Rose had a lovely 4-5
minute conversation about “The Last Witch Hunter” and “Game Of Thrones”.
Firstly, we talked about “Game Of Thrones”, and how difficult her last episode
was to shoot. Not only because it was her last episode, but because 75% of it
was one gigantic battle sequence. It took A
MONTH OF NIGHT SHOOTS TO COMPLETE THE EPISODE! A MONTH! Then, at the end of that month, her final scene to
shoot was her death scene (shows rarely shoot in sequential order). She said
that she’s glad it was her final scene because she doesn’t think she could have
come back to play Ygritte again after dying in Jon Snow’s arms. After the
filming was completed, the crew presented Rose with Ygritte’s bow as a gift (in
a nice display case and everything!). What a lovely story! Rose said that the
grind of a month’s night shoots wasn’t easy because it messed up her body clock
so she was tired a lot, yet she said it was probably the most gratifying
episode of “Game Of Thrones” to film for her from a physicality perspective. After
we finished talking about “Game Of Thrones”, we transitioned to “The Last Witch
Hunter”, which is a film based on a book series, starring Rose and Vin Diesel
as the two leading actors (as far as I can see at least). Rose recently came
back from six months living in Pittsburgh for the role. She said that she can’t
say much about the film yet, but she really hopes that I enjoy the film when I
see it, and she adored living in Pittsburgh and would happily live there again.
What a woman! Guest type: Conversationalist.
This is actually a totally unique guest type, as I’ve never had a ‘big
guest’ conversationalist before. Kudos to Rose for being so friendly and
passionate about her fanbase.

Luckily, there was no crush of
people when trying to get from the 3rd floor to the 1st
floor today. Myself and Hannah were able to go down in the lift (due to
blisters!) relatively quickly after finishing talking to Rose. While Hannah
went off merchandise hunting for a while, I stayed close to photo area A
because my feet were killing me and my right shoulder was aching from 3 days of
hauling around a heavy bag (at one of the photo sessions, one ofthe crew members asked if I was carrying
around a bag of bricks!). A joyous (no, that’s not sarcasm) 45 minutes passed
before it was time for my photo session with Catherine Tate. Catherine was lovely. Even though I only had a brief
moment with her because it was a photo shoot, she looked me in the eye,smiled, said ‘hi’ (are you sensing a theme
for what makes me happy?), and the photo was taken. Also, the photo shoot
started on time! Hooray! Just when I didn’t need to be anywhere for another 2
hours! Typical. After the photo was taken, I headed downstairs to photo area B
and waited for an hour or so before my final photo with Jonathan Pryce. I also
did a little merchandise hunting because my ass was becoming numb. Dude, over 3
days, I sat down on a concrete floor for over eight hours. That’s a whole work day! No wonder my tail bone was
aching! My photo shoot with Jonathan started about 15 minutes late (probably
because Jonathan had to go from the 3rd floor to the ground floor),
but Jonathan seemed very friendly as well. He was wearing a little black brace
around his hand, so I can only assume a day’s worth of autographs were getting
to him a little bit. Even so, he was friendly, approachable, and greeted me
with a smile and ‘hi’. What more can you ask for?

With my entire body aching, we
walked the 15 minutes back to the car and made our way home. Was a traditional
Burger King purchased on the way, you long time readers ask? Yes, it was. I got
home about 8:45pm on Sunday night, which gave me a little time to reflect on
the weekend before starting work at 6am on Monday morning. Was the weekend
worth the money? Yes, it was. Sure, LFCC is chaotic, stressful, and exhausting,
but it’s arguably the biggest convention in Europe. No other can boast guests
like Michael J. Fox or Sigourney Weaver, that’s for sure. Also, upon
reflection, this was my second favourite LFCC or LFCC Winter ever (second to
LFCC 2013). The guests were all ‘good’ to ‘fantastic’, the atmosphere was
electric (if not a little sleepy), the venue was an improvement on Earls Court
II overall, and an amazing time was
had. It was definitely worth the jizzy condom room, the 13 blisters, the aches,
the pains, and the exhaustion. Would I attend again? I most definitely shall
be.

7 comments:

One more awesome review, which let me think I was there too! :D And damn... I really wish I was there... it sounds amazing! And it seems like you meet a lot of cool people! I have to admit, I don't know everyone of the guests you met, but the guests I know I really like to meet more now :DEspecially Rose Leslie sounds amazing! I do you love Ygritte in GOT. And now I love her even more. The picture of you two is soooo beautiful <3. And you met Freddy Kruger!!!! You really met Freddy... I am freaking out :D and "Jorah" aaaww... so cool ^_^And the "deo announcement" is really cool and a bit funny I have to admit :P ... even if the reason for the announcement is not cool and never funny ;)

Hayley Atwell and Katherine Tate, I'm officially jealous hahaha <3 This was an awesome review, I've never been to a con - unfortunately -_- - but reading this I feel like I'm there with you, it's so frigging cool! I wish I could've met Hayley <3 such a beautiful, smart and badass woman! Also her and the rest of the Agent Carter and Agents of Shield's Dubsmash wars are hilarious :'D

As usual, a great review!! Waw, those Game of Thrones actors really are making the rounds :-D So jealous that you got to meet 2 of my favorites, Hayley Atwell and Catherine Tate! 2 amazing kick ass ladies!And yay for the tie!! :-D

Hehehe, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit jealous you got a photo with Alexander Siddig. I adored him as Bashir on Star Trek. But, he was so lovely to meet when we finally caught him at the autograph table at the end of Saturday, and when we asked for an autograph to the both of us because we could only afford one, he waved it off and did us one each anyway :D I felt really sorry for Michael Gambon when I had my photo with him, as he looked exhausted (he'd been slouching around most of the weekend looking like the quintessential grumpy old man lol) and he didn't really smile, but he did say smile when I said thank you to him after the photo. And Kristian Nairn was so lovely!! Huge though! I don't know if anyone met Richard Dean-Anderson, but he literally walked past me on the ground floor, and I swear, that is the not the man I swooned over in Stargate lol, he looks so ancient! And wrinkly!

Ditto on the Alexander Siddig. He is such a gentleman. I also loved him in Lawrence of Arabia. I just want to sit and watch him talk...not to me, to anybody. Also, Agent Carter a plus and Michael Gambon another lovely talker. I finally had the time and the energy to live vicariously through your post and it was a dream! Thanks.

I've been thinking of going to a con from time to time, but it's always a HUGE turnoff to see that in order to be permitted a picture, you have to pay $50+? I'm guessing that's for those photoshoots you've mentioned, which makes me wonder how many of those autograph table selfies I see on Twitter are all that legal.